175k salary and all gone

[175allgone]

This will ruffle some feathers, but after tax, mortgage , childcare, living expenses….there doesn’t seem much left. SE London, commuting, wrap around care. Whilst I appreciate I’m not having to watch my bills I’m hardly living an extravagant lifestyle.

Another vote for getting a nanny as a cheaper option.

This is all your choice op
Why do you have such an expensive mortgage when you could have chosen a cheaper area of london? Why have two kids when one is a stretch financially and double your childcare costs?

But Islington isn’t in SE london…?

I imagine your childcare and mortgage is quite high. Hopefully things will improve when you don’t have to pay those; otherwise you may need better planning, moving to a cheaper area maybe?

I agree that £1k leftover isn't alot... and truthfully you won't be 'getting back' the £4k in nursery fees as if they are not being diverted towards private school fees later you'll be paying for all the other hobbies and lessons. Then they are the holidays that cost more, having to save for university costs, etc.

Have you reached maximum earning capacity? I think the only way out of this is to earn more.

I think this is key to understanding why higher earners feel they are hard done by or doing it wrong.
In the previous generation of you did all the right things (only accessible to drive mins you), either worked long hours in finance or law or went into medicine you were guaranteed salaries and lifestyles to match. It was very very normal for Dr's, lawyers and people in insurance/finance by mid career to have a semi detached house, kids in private school and a summer holiday plus skiing.
Inflation, particularly housing cost inflation (and childcare)has outstripped wage rises by some stretch. So if you weren't paying attention to macroeconomics it's perhaps come as a bit of a suprise that your well paying career doesn't give you the same buying power.
But... It really shouldn't be that surprising, I mean some of this is basic forward planning and maths? Also everyone else has also been hit by the disparity in stagnant wage growth and rampant housing and childcare costs and for those people who have less choice and are having to make really hard choices they've been truly fucked over. Noise diving productivity and a completely unregulated housing and childcare market has absolutely buggered a generation...
So op, unlike the generation before you bluntly you can't afford the lifestyle you want/thought you could have. Either tough it out till childcare is done or move or move and move jobs or get into earning more....

4k in childcare is exorbitant. Is this private schooling? Why do you pay so
much on commuting? Can you work from home?

To be honest OP, this is exactly the reason why families leave central London. Your commuting costs would go up, but your mortgage and childcare would reduce - especially as, if you pick the right area, you won’t have to find school fees in a few years. Wraparound care and clubs or so much cheaper when they start school - it was a revelation to us after years of huge childcare bills.

Are you using a nursery at the moment? A nanny or nanny share would be cheaper option too.

I’m just honestly curious as to how people manage when supposedly I’m on such a great salary

They don't live in Islington and at least some will have spaced their kids so they don't have two in nursery at the same time.

Once the nursery costs end, you'll hopefully feel a lot better off. Unless you're planning to send them to private school - which it sounds like you couldn't afford to do.

Yep, however, it doesn’t sound like OP is struggling with going on holiday, but their overall financials. If you are really worried about money and finding yourself with not enough at the end of the month, then you need to reconsider all finances and where you can make savings.

We’ve had one open in our area and as much as I would love to send our son there, it would leave us with no buffer. So, we’ve had to sacrifice that nursery for another in the area to ensure we can keep paying our mortgage and bills.

Well its not hard to figure out, you have temporary outgoings of £4k a month, you'll be flush again in a relatively short space of time and at the moment you have £1k of disposable income so you're not on the bones of your arse. Paired with the comment about ruffling feathers makes me think this is a stealth boast?

I mean if you're genuinely looking for practical advise one avenue would be to reduce your need for childcare, is there any way your partner and/or yourself could compress hours to a 4 day week? Perhaps alternating 5 day 4 day weeks so every 2 weeks one of you has the Friday and you could reduce nursery days to a 4 day week? I have friends who did this when their 2 were in nursery.

Maybe this is why OP’s commuting costs are so high- she’s travelling to Islington via Bromley?

Oh dear what a shame ?

Move up north. Loads of employment opportunities and cheap housing, high speed rail to the capital…oops maybe not

Childcare will come down as your children get older.

If you don't use private schools this will ease, albeit after school / holiday nannies / clubs still cost money.
Are your children in nursery? A nanny (or nanny share) may be cheaper.
If you work in the city and take the tube now you could cycle in / take the bus to cut commuting costs?
Don't move, or at least don't move far. State schools in London are often much better than elsewhere in the SE and if your job is full-on there will be real advantages in having a short commute and not having secondary school aged children spending hours alone at home every afternoon/evenjng while you sit on a train.

Living in London is extravagant these days .

I also don’t understand, is this a joint or solo income?
I live in London so I can very much see why you have those childcare costs. I agree that if you can’t reduce them (though other posters have given good suggestions), the entirely obvious answer is to move further out. Selling an Islington flat would release equity and still get you a pretty nice house in plenty of decent London suburbs with a decent commute and good state schools. I have friends with kids who make more than this and they’ve all sold up and moved out to zone 3-6, no one stays in Islington unless they are seriously minted with family money.

No offence but we up North don't want everyone coming up here and snapping up the housing. 👍

I am amazed that some on these big salaries have no savings. You seriously can't put away £50 a month? That doesn't smack of being very financially savvy.

It's the childcare. The cost of childcare in this country is insane, especially as the staff in nurseries etc get paid so little.

Assuming you send to stare school, the cost of wraparound care etc is absolutely not 4k a month (am also in London), but you do have to plan and budget for the school hols.

No it’s just two kids in day nursery in London.

And that's why I left London. I realised no matter how much I earned my quality of life would be rubbish. Now I live by the sea, earn less and spend less and breathe clean air.

No need to imagine. Op said that the childcare bill was £4k and the mortgage £2.5k.

We don't need high speed rail to London, all that does is widen the area where people can work in London in their high paying big jobs and live even further out. A lot of the OPs problems would be avoided by spreading demand across the country so there wasn't a disproportionate amount of people thinking they 'have' to live in London.

We need a functional service to travel between the cities in Northern England. For the cost of HS2, there could be a high speed line from Liverpool to Hull via Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and York with branch lines to Sheffield and Newcastle, which would benefit far more people and make the country more equal.

@175allgone why is your childcare £4k? I live in zone 3 London and have an excellent nanny 4 days a week and it costs £2800/month.

Your other expenses are standard - it’s obviously the childcare that is crippling.

As we are in campaign season I would really like to see the parties come out and tell us how they are going to resolve the childcare clusterfuck. I'm in the SE and nursery costs are now c.£100/day. More and more people are dropping out of the workforce as it is unstainable which obviously is an issue for productivity, tax revenue, pension health etc. It needs to be proper year round, all day subsidised universal childcare.

And similarly we need to consider school age children in the holidays. I've just been costing up summer holiday childcare and the basic 9-5 day comes in at over £50 per day but of course you then need to pay and additional £20 for early drop off because most people need to be in work by 9.